The price modeling study, conducted by researchers at Oxford University and published in The Lancet Planetary Health, examined the cost of food in 150 countries. Based on 2017 prices published by the World Banks International Comparison Program, the study found that substituting plant-based for animal-based foods could reduce food bills in rich nations, including the United States.
Specifically, the study found that vegan diets were the most economical and could reduce grocery bills by as much as 34 percent compared to the food costs of a typical Western diet.
One significant healthcare cost that might drop with more people eating vegan food in the U.S. is the cost of treating moderate-to-severe COVID-19 infections. Throughout 2021, a trickle of medical research began to uncover a link between plant-heavy diets and milder COVID infections.
In June, a study published in the BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health journal found that among 2,884 frontline healthcare workers in six countries, including the U.S., those who followed a plant-based diet had a 73 percent lower risk of moderate-to-severe COVID compared to healthcare workers who ate more animal-based foods.
In September, medical journal Gut published a study out of Massachusetts General Hospital, which analyzed data from 592,571 participants in a smart-phone based study of COVID symptoms and found that those who ate the most plant-based food had a 9 percent lower risk of developing COVID and a 41 percent lower risk of developing severe COVID. Study participants came from the U.S. and U.K.
For decades, medical studies have accumulated showing plant-based eating protects against many of the top causes of death in the U.S. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2020 (the latest year for which statistics are available), the top two causes of death remained heart disease followed by cancer, both linked to high consumption of animal-based foods. Heart disease deaths saw their largest increase since 2012, jumping 4.2 percent in 2020. COVID was the third leading cause of death in 2020.